


Brothers

by batyalewbel



Category: Babylon Berlin (TV)
Genre: Angst, Episode 1x16 tag or 2x08 depending on whether you watched it on Netflix or not I guess, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Kinda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-19
Updated: 2018-10-19
Packaged: 2019-08-04 08:16:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16343195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/batyalewbel/pseuds/batyalewbel
Summary: He stared into the face of a doctor. A strangely familiar face, riddled with scars.The eyes that slowly came into focus behind thinly framed spectacles.The eyes struck him as the Doctor asked, “Do you recognize me?”





	Brothers

**Author's Note:**

> Okay this is my last Babylon Berlin thing for awhile I swear

_Tell me about a complicated man.  
_ _Muse, tell me how he wandered and was lost  
_ _when he had wrecked the holy town of Troy  
_ _and where he went, and who he met, the pain  
_ _he suffered in the storms at sea, and how  
_ _he worked to save his life and bring his men  
_ _back home. He failed to keep them safe; poor fools,  
_ _they ate the Sun God’s cattle, and the god  
_ _kept them from home. Now goddess, child of Zeus,  
_ _tell the old story for our modern times.  
_ _Find the beginning._

_-The Odyssey, translated by Emily Wilson_

  


Anno Rath had always been the beloved brother. Older, stronger.

A good soldier, they said.

A credit to his family, they said.

When people looked at Gereon, there was always a hint of disappointment. He was always seen as the lesser of the two.

And he didn’t even _mind._

He worshipped his brother, trailing after him like a lost dog and following his every whim when they were children

When they got older he still loved his brother, but he could also see the cracks that nobody else seemed to see.

Anno could be enigmatic. Cold, even.

It was offset by a wicked humor that made it so easy to forget that moments when his edges were hard enough to cut anyone who got too close.

Yet his quiet calm and charisma drew people into his orbit. People like Helga.

People who maybe deserved some warmth and softness.

The first time he had felt a hint of jealousy over her, it was followed by shame.

He loved his brother.

He had never meant to be a part of his death

\---

The scene is always there, every time he closes his eyes.

He can smell blood and death, he can feel the mud beneath his fingernails and the sweat trickling down the back of his neck.

And he can hear his brother screaming his name.

The part that comes next is harder to recall.

If only because doing so threatens to tear him in two.

In fact, maybe it does.

He spoken the other version so often he can almost believe it. He can picture it so clearly.

Dragging Anno back to the safety of their trench, only to find themselves surrounded.

The way his brother felt at his back as Gereon spread his arms wide, trying to shield Anno and his injuries from the soldiers.

The captivity he remembers all too well. Locked in the dark and the cold for months. Occasionally questioned and rarely fed.

In all that time the memories of what happen was already starting to twist. Because the reality of it was making him lose his sanity.

The reality that he left Anno behind.

Because he was tired and scared and wanted so much to survive.

He had left his brother there on the battlefield. Only to be captured by the soldiers anyway.

Fate was nothing if not cruel in its irony.

And so for five months he imagined something better. A scenario where he was brave in the face of impossible odds and Anno’s death wasn’t his fault.

He imagined it until it was reality and he spoke it like truth.

He hadn’t left Anno behind. He had tried to save him and failed.

Of course, saying it wasn’t enough. He had to believe it, even as the truth tried to leak out through his eyes, through his sweat soaked skin, and through his shaking hands.

The Doctor’s had names for what ailed him and they gave him medicine to keep it at bay.

To keep Anno’s ghost at bay.

It almost worked for a time. Or maybe he had just convinced himself of that too. Maybe he really was just another broken automaton like Wolter said.

\---

Gereon opened his eyes slowly, his thoughts swirling and muddled. His vision blurred and he couldn’t remember where he was or how he got here but a voice was telling him to wake up and he had to obey.

He stared into the face of a doctor. A strangely familiar face, riddled with scars. The eyes that slowly came into focus behind thinly framed spectacles.

The eyes struck him as the Doctor asked, “Do you recognize me?”

Gereon must have gone mad. He must have finally lost his grip on sanity because what he was seeing couldn’t be real.

But that didn’t stop him from asking, _“Anno?”_

“Yes,” his brother replied in that cool quiet way he always used to as he leaned forward in his seat. Gereon could smell the cigarettes on his breath mixing with the sweaty stale air of this room.

It all felt too real to be a hallucination.

But how?

_How?_

He could feel himself trembling, his mouth twisting as tears ripped from his eyes.

Anno stood up, towering over him the way he had when they were boys.

“Get up Gereon,” he said and Gereon did. He had always done what his brother told him to do.

Right up until he didn’t.

He got to his feet, sobbing like a child. Anno reached out with one callused hand to brush tears from his eyes and then pulled Gereon into a tight embrace.

The older holding the younger gently, while the younger clung for dear life.

“I’m sorry,” Gereon said into his shoulder, words mixing with tears, “I’m so sorry.”

Anno had a hand in his hair and said nothing at all.

He simply held Gereon close and let him cry until nothing was left but numbness and fear.

**Author's Note:**

> I have a million complicated feelings about that final double reveal. But also the way Gereon just fucking cries hurts me a lot???? But I think his brother is shady as fuck kidnapping and drugging Gereon without his friggin consent??? Anyway I have FEELINGS. Enjoy them.


End file.
